


Say My Name

by ErrantNight



Series: Dragons and Daedra [1]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Gen, Short One Shot, probably
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-17
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-10-20 11:41:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20674802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErrantNight/pseuds/ErrantNight
Summary: If she had to hear the word Dragonborn one more time...IMPORTANT NOTE! THIS WHOLE THING HAS BEEN REWRITTEN AND REPLACED!





	Say My Name

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this with no intention of writing more and just made some stuff up as I went, but recently more started popping in as an actual complete narrative and this didn't at all match what I want to have this character be in the long run!

Threnod can count the number of people who actually know her name on one hand.

No one ever seemed to care about what she had to say. It was true, she was quiet by nature - never having gotten used to speaking overmuch as a child. Grelod had always said children should shut their noise holes and none of them had anything to say that she cared to hear.

So, she found herself speaking infrequently even when she’d grown and escaped the orphanage and determined to actually do something and maybe even become someone worth more than dirt. 

But that didn’t really work out either, at first. She’d gotten as far away from Riften as she could, tried to learn some useful things. She wasn’t particularly good at one thing over another, learned a couple of spells and fell in with some folk who were sometimes caravan guards and sometimes highwaymen - depending on which sort of job came along first really. 

She was told so often that she wasn’t fun, such a boor, too grim, didn’t smile enough. She didn’t know why it mattered so much, whether she smiled or not. She wasn’t happy, ever, so why try and fake it?

Then they’d decided they’d had enough of her and cut her loose, even took back the armor and weapons she’d scavenged and laughed as they shoved her off into the woods. She fucked her hands up, punching a tree, but she didn’t care.

She definitely cared when she stumbled into a group of Stormcloaks just as an ambush snared them all and she ended up bound in a wagon and then shoved to her knees to be beheaded. At least the soldier had written down her name, seemed a tiny bit upset that she was going to be killed and he could tell she hadn’t had anything to do with the men proclaiming they were going to die with honor.

Things got very fast, and very strange, and so much more complicated than she’d ever dreamed. She’d had to be a hero, had to save the world… when sometimes she’d lay in a bedroll in the dark and sort of wanted the world to get swallowed up anyway. 

It got worse, after. She didn’t have anything to do, all the energy drained out of her once she’d done her duty. She’d half wanted to just… stay in Sovngard, then she wouldn’t have to deal with anything again. But fuck if they didn’t want to know her name either, she was just ‘Dragonborn’ and that was that.

She started picking up odd jobs, cleaning out bandits, a little bounty hunting, a little courier work.

‘Would you mind taking this to so-and-so?’

‘Would you be a friend and fetch that for me?’

‘Would you care to make some extra coin and wipe out those bandits?’

‘Would you go and kill that friend of yours?’

‘Would you choose a fucking side already, Dragonborn? The war is tearing this country apart!’

‘Our hero, our hero, claims a warrior's heart. I tell you, I tell you, the Dragonborn comes!’

If she had to hear that one more time, Threnod might very well scream… But then everyone would know who, and what, she was. Because shouting was the only thing people thought she was good for, the only thing anyone ever wanted her to do, so long as she shouted at who or what she was told to. So she stayed quiet, kept her mouth shut most of the time, and shut out the shouts of everyone else who never bothered to learn her name and just called her ‘Dragonborn.’

Just one time she wanted someone to say her name and care about who she was instead of only what they wanted her to do.


End file.
